Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/219

 190 Among the rest, ʿAlī came to inquire; and as he sat by the Caliph's bedside, the son of Al-ʿAbbās too came up. ʿOmar, who dreaded the factious spirit of the latter, said: "O Ibn al-ʿAbbās, art thou with me in this matter?" He signified assent, whereupon ʿOmar added earnestly: "See that thou deceive me not, thou and thy fellows. Now, ʿAbdallah, my son, raise my head from the pillow, then lay it gently down upon the ground; peradventure the Lord may in mercy take me thus, this night, for I fear the horrors of the rising sun." A physician gave him to drink of date-water; but it oozed through the wound unchanged; and so also with a draught of milk. Which when the physician saw, he said: "I perceive that the wound is mortal: make now thy testament, O Commander of the Faithful." "That," said ʿOmar, "have I done already." As he lay, his head resting on the bosom of his son, he recited this couplet:—

And so, in a low voice, he kept repeating the name of the Lord and the Muslim creed, until his spirit passed away. It was a few days before the close of the 23rd year of the Hijra. He had reigned for the space of ten years and a half.

So died ʿOmar, next to the Prophet the greatest in the kingdom of Islām; for it was all within these ten years that, by his wisdom, patience, and vigour, the dominion was achieved of Syria, Egypt, and Persia. Abu Bekr beat down the Apostate tribes; but at his death the armies of Islām had but just crossed the Syrian frontier. ʿOmar began his reign master only of Arabia. He died the Caliph of an Empire embracing some of the fairest provinces under Byzantine rule, and with Persia to boot. Yet throughout this marvellous fortune he never lost the balance of a wise and sober judgment, nor exalted himself above the frugal habit of an Arab chief. "Where is the Caliph?" the visitor would ask, as he looked around the court of the Medīna mosque; and all the while the monarch might be sitting in homely guise before him.

ʿOmar's life requires but few lines to sketch. Simplicity and duty were his guiding principles, impartiality and